Optical waveguide terminators with doped waveguides

ABSTRACT

Disclosed herein are methods, structures, apparatus and devices for the termination of unused waveguide ports in planar photonic integrated circuits with doped waveguides such that free-carrier absorption therein may advantageously absorb any undesired optical power resulting in a significant reduction of stray light and resulting reflections.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional PatentApplication Ser. No. 61/735,710 filed Dec. 11, 2012 which isincorporated by reference in its entirety as if set forth at lengthherein.

TECHNICAL FIELD

This disclosure relates generally optical communications and planarphotonic integrated circuits. More particularly, this disclosurepertains to techniques, methods, apparatus, structures and materialspertaining to the termination of unused waveguide ports in planarphotonic integrated circuits with doped waveguides.

BACKGROUND

Contemporary optical communications and other photonic systems makeextensive use of photonic integrated circuits. Accordingly, techniques,methods, apparatus and structures that improve operationalcharacteristic of such photonic circuits would represent a welcomeaddition to the art.

SUMMARY

An advance in the art is made according to an aspect of the presentdisclosure directed to techniques, methods, apparatus, structures andmaterials that enhance the operational characteristics of planarphotonic integrated circuits by terminating unused waveguide ports withdoped waveguides.

Advantageously compared to other waveguide termination techniques knownin the art, doped waveguide termination of unused ports according to thepresent disclosure significantly reduces stray light and reflections inthe photonic circuits.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING

A more complete understanding of the present disclosure may be realizedby reference to the accompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1(a) and FIG. 1(b) show a schematic illustrations of a opticalcomponents that may generate reflections/stray light including (a) apolarization filter including a directional coupler when TM port is notproperty terminated, and (b) a Mach-Zehnder interferometer employed asan optical modulator in which ˜50% of average optical power becomesstray light during modulation; and

FIG. 2 shows a schematic illustration of using a doped waveguide toterminate unused waveguide port(s) wherein the free-carrier absorptionin the doped waveguide gradually reduces the optical power level withoutcausing reflection or stray light according to the present disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The following merely illustrates the principles of the disclosure. Itwill thus be appreciated that those skilled in the art will be able todevise various arrangements which, although not explicitly described orshown herein, embody the principles of the disclosure and are includedwithin its spirit and scope. More particularly, while numerous specificdetails are set forth, it is understood that embodiments of thedisclosure may be practiced without these specific details and in otherinstances, well-known circuits, structures and techniques have not beshown in order not to obscure the understanding of this disclosure.

Furthermore, all examples and conditional language recited herein areprincipally intended expressly to be only for pedagogical purposes toaid the reader in understanding the principles of the disclosure and theconcepts contributed by the inventor(s) to furthering the art, and areto be construed as being without limitation to such specifically recitedexamples and conditions.

Moreover, all statements herein reciting principles, aspects, andembodiments of the disclosure, as well as specific examples thereof, areintended to encompass both structural and functional equivalentsthereof. Additionally, it is intended that such equivalents include bothcurrently-known equivalents as well as equivalents developed in thefuture, i.e., any elements developed that perform the same function,regardless of structure.

Thus, for example, it will be appreciated by those skilled in the artthat the diagrams herein represent conceptual views of illustrativestructures embodying the principles of the invention.

In addition, it will be appreciated by those skilled in art that anyflow charts, flow diagrams, state transition diagrams, pseudocode, andthe like represent various processes which may be substantiallyrepresented in computer readable medium and so executed by a computer orprocessor, whether or not such computer or processor is explicitlyshown.

In the claims hereof any element expressed as a means for performing aspecified function is intended to encompass any way of performing thatfunction including, for example, a) a combination of circuit elementswhich performs that function or b) software in any form, including,therefore, firmware, microcode or the like, combined with appropriatecircuitry for executing that software to perform the function. Theinvention as defined by such claims resides in the fact that thefunctionalities provided by the various recited means are combined andbrought together in the manner which the claims call for. Applicant thusregards any means which can provide those functionalities as equivalentas those shown herein. Finally, and unless otherwise explicitlyspecified herein, the drawings are not drawn to scale.

Thus, for example, it will be appreciated by those skilled in the artthat the diagrams herein represent conceptual views of illustrativestructures embodying the principles of the disclosure.

By way of some additional background, we begin my noting that it isknown for the operation of microwave circuits, unused microwave portsmay be terminated thereby avoiding undesirable back reflections.Generally—and according to the present disclosure—a similar concept isnow applied to photonic circuits.

Compounding the problem however, is the fact that in addition to anyoptical reflections, stray light in photonic circuits is alsoproblematic. More particularly, unlike free space configurations inwhich stray-light diffracts away rapidly, stray light often remains inphotonic integrated circuits because vertical stacks of materialsprovide optical confinement.

As those skilled in the art will appreciate when different functionalphotonic elements are closely integrated together into one or morephotonic integrated circuits—and different optical power levels areinvolved—high optical isolation is required and stray light should beminimized throughout the circuits.

For example, an integrated circuit including a transmitter and areceiver might have a laser input approaching 15 dBm, and a receiverpart to measure another signal with a power level of −35 dBm (forexample, an optical power monitor with 5% tap of the received signal).In this example, an optical isolation of more than 50 dB is thusrequired.

Unfortunately, many optical components generate reflections and/or straylight. With reference now to FIG. 1(a) and FIG. 1(b), there is shown twosuch examples. FIG. 1(a) shows a schematic example of a polarizationfilter based on a directional coupler. As depicted therein, most of thetransverse electric (TE) signal continues along a through port. All ofthe undesired orthogonal transverse magnetic (TM) light and some of theTE signal are shown as being filtered out to another port. As may beappreciated—with such a configuration—some of light traversing thestructure will be reflected back, and some will become stay light.

FIG. 1(b) shows in schematic form an illustration of an exemplaryMach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI). As is known in the art, such (MZIs)are oftentimes used in optical modulators. Here one or both arms of theMZI are adjusted, and an optical signal at an output port is modulated.For a non-return-to-zero on-off-keying modulation (NRZ-OOK), in averageonly 50% of the optical power is delivered to the output port, and theremaining 50% becomes stray light in the circuit.

According to an aspect of the present disclosure, such infirmity mayadvantageously be avoided if a 2×2 optical combiner replaces the 2×1optical combiner and the unused port of the 2×2 combiner is properlyterminated according to the present disclosure.

There exist several techniques for terminating unused waveguide ports.However these techniques principally reduce optical reflections.Accordingly, most of the undesired light is still converted to straylight, which is problematic for photonic integrated circuits.

For example, one technique uses relatively long waveguides to terminatethe unused ports. As light propagates along the waveguides, it graduallydiminishes due to the propagation loss of the waveguides. However, inmany cases the propagation loss is predominately optical scatteringloss, which converts the optical signal mostly to stray light. Anothertechnique uses a waveguide inverse taper with reducing waveguide width.Here the optical mode gradually loses confinement and light isdiffracted into the claddings surrounding the waveguide, again becomingstray light. Yet another technique routes the unused ports to the edgesof the photonic chip and the undesired light is sent off the chip.However, such routing might become difficult in many circuits having ahigh level of integration and therefore a large number of “internal”circuits.

According to an aspect of the present disclosure, intentionally dopedwaveguides are used to terminate any unused waveguide ports in aphotonic integrated circuit—or other photonic structure—such thatundesired light is absorbed by the free carrier absorption withoutcausing additional reflections or stray light, as was the case withprior art existing techniques. In a preferred embodiment, any undesiredlight is completely absorbed by the free carrier absorption andadditional reflections and stray light is eliminated. In certainembodiments, unused ports are added to a photonic structure and thenterminated according to the present disclosure such that reflections andstray light are reduced or eliminated, and the structure's overallperformance is enhanced.

As used herein, an unused waveguide port in a photonic integratedcircuit is one that is either unused, or open-ended, and the dopedwaveguides that form the terminators are intentionally doped.

These concepts of the present disclosure are illustrated schematicallyin FIG. 2 . Therein an unused waveguide port is connected to a waveguidethat has been intentionally doped. This doping adds free carriers suchas electrons or holes to the waveguide, which induces optical absorptionthrough free-carrier absorptions. As light propagates along the dopedwaveguide, the power level exponentially drops and can be suppressed toa sufficiently low level with enough propagation length.

Advantageously, because the suppression mechanism according to thepresent disclosure is based on absorption rather than scattering, nosignificant stray light will be generated. Also, unless the doping levelin the absorber region is extremely high, the difference in refractiveindices between the undoped region and the doped region is small enoughto avoid significant optical reflection at the interface.

We may now provide a further example of a device and/or structureaccording to the present disclosure. Here we give an example as based ona silicon photonic integrated circuit. In doped silicon, the changes inthe refractive index and the absorption coefficient can be written as

Δn=−8.8×10⁻²² ΔN−8.5×10⁻¹⁸(ΔP)^(0.8),

Δα=8.5×10⁻¹⁸ ΔN+6.0×10⁻¹⁸ ΔP,

respectively, where N and P are the concentrations of free electrons andholes, in cm⁻³. For example, if an n-doped region with an electronconcentration of 1E19 is used as the waveguide terminator, assuming aconfinement factor of close to 1, the absorption coefficient is 85 cm⁻¹or about 370 dB/cm. So an absorber with 1.5 mm length is sufficient toproduce an attenuation of more than 55 dB. The change in the refractiveindex is about −8.8E-3, which corresponds to a reflection level of only−58 dB, negligible for most applications. For an even higher dopinglevel of 1E20, the absorption coefficient becomes 3700 dB/cm (anabsorber length of merely 150 micrometers produces an attenuation ofmore than 55 dB), and the reflection level increases to −38 dB, whichmight still be acceptable for many applications.

At this point, those skilled in the art will readily appreciate thatwhile the methods, techniques and structures according to the presentdisclosure have been described with respect to particularimplementations and/or embodiments, those skilled in the art willrecognize that the disclosure is not so limited. For example, thetermination waveguide may be partially doped and partially undoped, ordoped to different types or levels in different segments. Additionaltransition pieces such as waveguide width tapers or transitions betweenwaveguides of different thickness/etch depths may be added between theunused waveguide port and the doped waveguide absorber. The dopedwaveguide can be routed in a straight pattern, or in spiral patterns toreduce its footprint. The end of the doped waveguide absorber can beeither an abrupt end or a gradual taper, without affecting the deviceperformance. Accordingly, the scope of the disclosure should only belimited by the claims appended hereto.

1. A method for enhancing the operational characteristics of a photonicintegrated circuit, said photonic integrated circuit including: one ormore used ports and one or more unused ports; said method comprising thestep of: terminating one or more unused ports of the photonic integratedwith a doped waveguide such that internal reflections and stray light isreduced when light traverses the one or more used ports.
 2. The methodaccording to claim 1 further comprising the step of: modifying a usedport of the photonic integrated circuit such that the photonicintegrated circuit includes an additional unused port; and terminatingthe additional port with a doped waveguide.
 3. The method according toclaim 1 wherein said doped waveguide terminator is n-doped having anelectron concentration of 1E19-5E20 and exhibits a length of 20micrometers to 1.5 mm.
 4. The method according to claim 1 wherein saiddoped waveguide terminator includes both doped and undoped portions. 5.The method according to claim 1 wherein said doped waveguide is doped atdifferent concentrations at different parts of the waveguide.
 6. Anoptical waveguide terminator comprising: a length of doped waveguidebeing optically connected to an unused port of a photonic integratedcircuit.
 7. The terminator of claim 6 wherein said doped waveguideterminator is n-doped having an electron concentration of 1E19-5E20 andexhibits a length of 20 micrometers to 1.5 mm.
 8. The terminator ofclaim 7 which includes both doped and undoped portions.
 9. Theterminator of claim 8 wherein said doped waveguide is doped at differentconcentrations at different parts of the waveguide.
 10. A method forenhancing the operational characteristics of a photonic integratedcircuit, said photonic integrated circuit including one or more usedports, said method comprising the step of: modifying a used port of thephotonic integrated circuit such that the photonic integrated circuitincluded an unused port; and terminating the unused port of the photonicintegrated with a doped waveguide.
 11. The method of claim 10 whereinsaid doped waveguide terminator is n-doped having an electronconcentration of 1E19-5E20 and exhibits a length of 20 micrometers to1.5 mm.
 12. The terminator of claim 11 which includes both doped andundoped portions.
 13. The terminator of claim 12 wherein said dopedwaveguide is doped at different concentrations at different parts of thewaveguide.